My wife and I had to take her car over to the dealership in Muscatine one evening so they could begin to do some service work on it the first thing the next morning. Downtown Muscatine has undergone a number of renovations over the past couple of years and one of the bigger renovations is the Merrill Hotel and Conference Center and the renovated condominiums next door at The Pearl Building. The developer of the project was looking for a tenant to take a restaurant space on the walk-up first floor of the Pearl and he was able to find two brothers who had experience in running Italian restaurants. There are already some good Italian restaurants in Muscatine, but on this trip we decided to see how good Mamma Mia was in comparison to the others.
Besim "Johnny" Qerimi and Gony Veseli were half-brothers who were literally raised in kitchens. With a family tree that stretches back to Sicily and the Eastern Mediterranean, they were taught how to cook by their father and their grandfather. Working in restaurants out east and down in Texas, Johnny and Gony ended up in the Cedar Rapids suburb of Marion, IA in February of 2011 to open an Italian restaurant/pizzeria by the name of Napoli's. At first, the small place was a "bring-your-own" beer and wine place, but a bit over a year after they opened they decided to put in a full service bar and expand the restaurant. Shutting the business down for nearly a month, Qerimi and Veseli renovated the restaurant adding a lunch menu and got a liquor license. They reopened the new and improved Napoli's in April of 2012.
Feim Veseli was working in a family-owned restaurant down in Texas when an opportunity to move to Iowa to help out in his brother's restaurant came up. The family scouted around Eastern Iowa for another Napoli's location and found a building that housed a former Maid-Rite franchise in Clinton. Feim and Gony Veseli opened a second Napoli's in that location in April of 2016. Unfortunately, the success the family had with their Cedar Rapids-area location didn't translate well into the dining patterns of people from Clinton and they closed that Napoli's in February of 2017.
Undeterred, the brothers looked for a second location and found that Muscatine developer Tom Meeker was looking for someone to put a restaurant in a space he had in the Pearl Building, a building that was built in 1916 and Meeker had owned for about 15 years. He had turned much of the building into condos, but had first floor space for a couple more restaurants to join Tantra Thai Bistro which had been in The Pearl for about 9 years. The Veseli brothers brought in a chef they knew from Texas, Nick Lutvi, who learned the basics of Italian cooking working at his father's restaurant in New Jersey as a young boy. Using many of the same "made-from-scratch" techniques that the brothers implemented at their Napoli's locations, they opened Mamma Mia in November of 2017. Feim Veseli and his wife, Rina, are the managing partners of the Muscatine restaurant.
The Pearl Building in which Mamma Mia is housed is located at the corner of Iowa Ave. and River Drive in downtown Muscatine. (see map) The entrance of Mamma Mia is up a flight of steps that leads to an entry way that is reminiscent of an old Italian wine cellar. Through a large curved wooden door, you'll find a water wall embedded in a small stone wall between the entrance and the dining area.
To your right just inside the restaurant is the bar area. It, too had sort of a wine cellar motif heavy on stone and brick. The bar, itself, was small with a wooden arch above the bar. A few tables were in the bar area that could be used for overflow from the dining area.
Inside the restaurant, there's an L-shaped dining area with windows on the north and east side. During daylight hours, you can easily see the Mississippi River just beyond River Drive. It had a very rustic Tuscan accent to the decor and we were impressed with how they were able to make it elegant, yet non-pretentious at the same time. It was a cozy and laid back feeling in the room.
My wife and I were greeted just inside the entrance by a lady with a thick Eastern European accent who turned out to be Rina Veseli. She guided us to a table next to one of the windows on the river side of the dining area. The place was about a third full - pretty good for a Sunday night, we thought. A large group of guys who we determined were in town for meetings at Allsteel, the makers of HON office furniture, were at a table near us. Rina dropped off menus for us to look over.
Right off the bat, I was looking to get something with a red sauce that evening and the Chicken Parmigiana was calling my name. However, they had a number of other chicken dishes that intrigued me including the Chicken Tetrazini that featured chicken breasts in a creamy brandy sauce with red peppers, and the Chicken Niccola that had chicken breasts stuffed with spinach, cheese and sautéed mushrooms in a cream sauce.
They also had a number of Italian specialities on the menu such as Eggplant Parmigiana, lobster-stuffed ravioli in a cream sauce, fettuccine carbonara, and manicotti. Mamma Mia also featured seafood dishes such as shrimp and scallops, shrimp alfredo, and a mussels and shrimp dish served in a spicy sherry marinara sauce. They also feature pizza at Mamma Mia, as well as a number of appetizers including calamari, stuffed mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese sticks served with their house-made marinara sauce.
At first, I thought I was pretty much going to go with the chicken parm, so I ended up getting a glass of Malbec wine when Rina came back to take our drink order. My wife was pretty certain what she was going to get - something more toward a cream sauce - so she ended up ordering a glass of their house Pinot Grigio. But the more I looked at the menu, the more torn I became as to what I really wanted to have.
After hemming and hawing about my choices, changing my mind three times before we finally ordered our main dishes, Rina brought out our salads as a precursor to the entrees. It was a simply salad consisting of lettuce, a single ring of sliced red onion, a couple slices of cucumber and a smattering of croutons. A house Italian dressing came on the salad. The lettuce was firm and crisp and the house dressing was zesty, but not forward in taste. A basket of fresh-baked braided bread came with the salads. The bread was soft and warm and was easily pulled apart. I could have sat there and just ate the bread the rest of the meal, it was that good.
My wife ended up getting getting the Veal Florentine - veal medallions in a garlic cream sauce with sautéed mushrooms (I've finally gotten my wife to eat mushrooms as long as they're fresh and not canned), red onions and fresh spinach. Fresh chopped parsley was spread over the dish to finish it off. My wife thought that the veal was a little tough, but she really liked the overall flavors in the entree.
As I said, I thought I was going to go with the chicken parmigiana, but at the last moment I ordered the Chicken Siciliana. It consisted of small chicken breasts in a white wine/butter/lemon sauce served on a bed of angel hair pasta. Since I now had gotten something with a white wine sauce, I finished up my glass of Malbec wine and ordered an Italian Orvieto they had on the wine list. However, Rina said that they were out of the Orvieto and I ordered up a glass of the same Pinot Grigio that my wife had.
The Chicken Siciliana was very good - the chicken breasts were tender and easy to cut. Artichoke hearts and sautéed mushrooms were interspersed with the chicken giving the dish a nice balance between tangy and earthy flavors. The lemon in the sauce was forward in taste, but not overpowering with the other flavors in the dish. The more I had, the more I liked about about the meal.
After finishing what we could - there was a lot of food - Rina tried to tempt us with some after dinner desserts, but we declined. She offered to box up what we had left - most of mine was the pasta and my wife had pretty much eaten her veal medallions - but we told her that it was fine. It never tastes as good re-heated as it does in the restaurant.
For our first visit to Mamma Mia, I'd have to say we were mightily impressed and we made plans to come back again at some point. My wife was happy with her Veal Florentine - even though she thought the veal may have been a little tough and overcooked - and I have to say that the more that I ate my Chicken Siciliana, the more I liked it. And I liked it fine from the first bite. The portions were large for what we paid, the service was friendly and efficient, and the rustic Tuscan-style decor was elegant, but still warm and inviting. Muscatine has a number of good to very good Italian restaurants and Mamma Mia may arguably be the best we've had in the city.
Comments